New medicines on the market have given new hope to the millions of people who suffer from Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), a chronic disease that often leads to severe liver disease and kills between 350 000-500 000 people annually.
WHO works closely with Member State governments to assess and promote policy options for increasing access to these medicines, which remain unaffordable to many of those who need them and put an enormous financial strain even on the health systems of high-income countries.

A one day “Technical Consultation on Innovative Models for New Antibiotics’ Development and Preservation” was held at WHO headquarters on 13 May 2014. The meeting brought together leading experts to present and discuss innovative models fostering discovery and development of new antibiotics as part of the toolkit to address challenges related to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This meeting was held in the context of the Global action plan for AMR (GAP-AMR) that WHO is mandated to develop before the next World Health Assembly. The research and development of new antimicrobials and their preservation is going to be an important pillar of the GAP-AMR.

As part of the follow-up on the Report of the WHO Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG) , the World Health Assembly, in resolution WHA66.22 and WHA decision 66(12), requested the Director-General of the WHO to “facilitate through regional consultations and broad engagement of relevant stakeholders the implementation of a few health research and development demonstration projects to address identified gaps that disproportionately affect developing countries, particularly the poor, and for which immediate action can be taken.

The paper provides information on the prices paid by 20 middle-income countries for adult and paediatric formulations of antiretroviral treatments recommended by WHO. It links this information with an analysis of the intellectual property situation of the selected medicines taking into account existing license agreements as well as compulsory licenses, and includes data and general information on a number of other determinants of prices and availability of ARVs, including tariffs, markups and taxes, as well as the regulatory status.